Tag: Culture

While it’s better to leave them alone, sometimes our animal friends could use a helping hand.

Like this koala, who hitched a ride with a farmer on his quad bike after nearly ending up in a pond, frightened by some dogs, according to 7 News.

“I’m just giving him a ride back to the dairy, so he can dry off,” the farmer said in the video. Upon returning it ran up a tree, where hopefully it doesn’t have to encounter a bunch of pesky dogs ever again.

He’s a philanthropist and social media influencer with more than a million followers on Instagram, including Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart. He’s appeared on Good Morning America and had his own booth at a music festival. He has numerous licensing and sponsorship deals with brands like Turtle Wax and Dremel.

Manny the Frenchie, as he’s known on Instagram, is not alone. He’s part of a growing breed of pet influencers that include other pedigree personalities like shih tzu Potato McTater and Cavalier King Charles spaniel Toast Meets World — they’re pictured above, doing their adorable thing.

Each of these doggos have achieved fame thanks to a distinctive personality trait.

Take Chloe the mini Frenchie, who is about half the size of a typical French bulldog. Her petite stature garnered her thousands of adoring fans, and eventually led to sponsorship deals in beauty and fashion.

Toast, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel rescued from a puppy mill, had to have all of her rotted teeth removed. This caused her tongue to flop out of her mouth, and the internet to fall in love with her.

Her ensuing fame has led to a book deal, merchandise, sponsorships, and even a fashion campaign. While her following largely grew organically without the help of management, she is now managed by Edwards’ Dog Agency.

“I have a background in PR, and I started sending out pictures of her in little outfits to different magazines, and it took off,” said Toast’s owner, Katie Sturino. “It became a really fun, cool thing.”

A post shared by Manny The Frenchie (@manny_the_frenchie) on Jul 5, 2017 at 4:13pm PDT

“That’s really what started to go viral,” said Manny’s owner, Jon Huang. “From there, celebrities started following up with him, giving him shout-outs. He got followed by the cast members from Glee, and then local media started picking him up.”

The corporate sponsorships

The money pet influencers can make from sponsorships varies based on follower count, but it can be a cash cow. Pets with a comparable number of followers to Manny can make anywhere from $10,000 to $15,000 per sponsored post, according to Edwards.

“Of course there’s many variables that go into it — the rates pets can make per post depend on the following, the engagement, and what’s involved in the campaign,” Edwards said. “But generally those with a couple hundred thousand followers are making $3,000 to $5,000 per piece of sponsored content, while those in the millions make $10,000 to $15,000.”

Those figures are comparable to human rates; Forbesreported in April that an influencer with 100,000 followers can expect around $5,000 per post.

A post shared by Manny The Frenchie (@manny_the_frenchie) on Jun 30, 2017 at 4:18pm PDT

While one might reasonably expect these pet influencers to promote products for animals, that’s not usually the case. Toast is best known as a fashion model; she did the entire look-book for Karen Walker’s Spring 2015 eyewear campaign and, as a result, was featured on posters all around the world.

Though it might seem odd that a fashion brand would choose a dog to model its new merchandise, Edwards said it actually makes good sense.

“A lot of the brands we work with are human brands as opposed to pet brands,” she said of her agency. “Brands are seeing the value that pet influencers are providing; they have higher engagement levels, they’re relatable across all demographics, and they offer all the traditional benefits of influencer marketing.”

Modeling hasn’t been Toast’s only foray into the human world. She also has brand deals with Stainmaster, Febreze, and Swiffer. Chloe also has her own distinct Instagram persona, focussing on topics that might not seem typical for an animal.

“Travel, fashion, and food,” Edwards said. “Chloe’s content tends to revolve around those themes, and the brands she partners with are based on those themes as well.”

A post shared by Chloe The Mini Frenchie (@chloetheminifrenchie) on Jul 6, 2017 at 3:06pm PDT

Manny, unlike other famous pets with such large followings, is managed by his owner Huang.

“We try to partner exclusively and strategically with partners who are organic to us, and who kind of share our mission,” Huang said. Manny’s partners are based in both the human and pet worlds, and range from Halo organic pet food to power tool brand Dremel, which makes a special nail filing attachment.

“We take all of Manny’s photos,” Huang said, explaining how the process works. “We write all the captions for the organic posts. If it’s campaign related, we write them in Manny’s voice and if the partner wants to change or edit, then they can choose to.”

Corporate partnerships and appearances aren’t the only ways these pets make money. Toast and Manny both have book deals and merchandise available in their online stores. Manny even did a campaign with American Apparel — his first partnership.

Philanthro-pups

Of course, it’s not all take, take, take. The humans behind the Insta pets generally use the social media platforms to give back where possible.

“Manny is known as the most philanthropic pet celebrity in the world,”Huang says. It’s a grand claim, but he insists that they’ve donated some $105,000 to various charitable causes. The proceeds from Manny’s merchandise go to animal rescue organizations and the pair purchased a new van for an animal shelter. Manny also visited a cystic fibrosis patient whose only wish was apparently to meet the dog.

Huang plans to launch Manny’s non-profit foundation before the end of the year, which will benefit whatever causes “touch [his] heart.”

“We visit a lot of retirement homes; Manny’s training to visit kids now,” Huang continued. “We want to work with kids with disabilities and fighting cancer. We want to cheer them up with Manny.”

According to Chloe’s website, she has used her celebrity to raise money for the Humane Society of NY, mostly through fashion-based collaborations.

“[Chloe] recently collaborated with luxury scarf line Donni Charm to create dog scarves, as well as worked with a factory in NYC to create Pawtty Bags, essentially little dog purses to hold poop bags,” her website states. All proceeds went to the Humane Society.

For Sturino, the most important use of Toast’s platform is encouraging dog adoption. She began the account not to seek fame, but because she felt more people needed to be aware of rescue dogs like Toast.

“She just had a very special energy — she just did,” Sturino said. “People were always very drawn to her.”

In addition to monetary donations to the humane society, she frequently uses Toast’s account to advocate for the removal of pet stores from New York City.

The future for Insta-pups

The Instagram pet community has ballooned in recent years, with newer pet owners seeing the mass appeal enjoyed by famous animals.

“I think that there was a first wave of Instagram famous dogs,” Sturino said. “And now that world has bloated so much.”

Take Potato, whose owner Tracy Wong started his account after following San Francisco’s Daily Dougie. “I became obsessed [with Dougie],” Wong said. “I said, ‘When I have a dog, he’s totally gonna be Instagram famous.’ It started as a joke, and it was just me following other dogs on Instagram and getting a lot of joy out of that; we never thought it would escalate to the point it’s at now.”

Much like any niche community, Wong said, there’s always a bit of drama. Sturino agreed. “It’s like the Toddlers and Tiaras of dogs,” she joked.

The issues stem from owners of rescue dogs versus those of dogs who were bought from a store or breeder. “A lot of store bought dogs on Instagram hide a little behind dog rescue, acting like they didn’t buy a dog,” Sturino said.

The ASPCA works closely with a lot of these canine celebs. “Instagram pet celebrities have a large influence on their fans, which is why the ASPCA often collaborates with them to spread awareness about key animal welfare issues including the importance of pet adoption, how to end puppy mills, and the cruelty of dog fighting, said Olivia Melikhov, ASPCA director of social media strategy.

“Lil Bub, for example, does a great job raising awareness about special needs pets, while Marnie the Dog helps raise visibility about the value of senior pet adoption. So while simply being famous on Instagram is a celebration of pets in general, we feel the true potential impact of these wonderful animals is their ability to advocate for fellow dogs and cats in need and at risk.”

All of the owners said their pets’ fans made running the accounts a fulfilling experience.

“Potato’s fans are the sweetest people in the world,” Wong said. “You see this goofy-looking, fluffy dog — just his existence makes us happy. It’s cool we get to share that with everyone else.”

Technology has changed the music industry (for better or worse) at its core. But along with the rise of digital audio and innovations like livestreaming, there came some challenges.

With livestreaming, it’s delay. There are always a few brief moments of nothingness when you decide to go live on Facebook, and the band The Academic decided to use that delay to record loops for a performance of their song “Bear Claws.

The song blew up, receiving over 1.2 million views in just a week. We were able to catch up with the band, to get a behind the scenes look at how the band was able to create the rendition of this song.

I would love to know how this idea came about?

We love technology and we obviously love music and we wanted to find something that could bring both together. We came across a little hack that uses a Facebook Live stream in a way that Facebook themselves never intended. We thought how cool would it be if we can turn Facebook Live into a video and audio sampler. Musically, it’s very similar to using a loop pedal – you stack layers of the same length on top of each other, indefinitely. The cool thing is the video picture loops too, so you’re building both loops simultaneously – live, within the Facebook platform.

What was the hardest part about recording the live loop?

It probably looks a lot easier than it actually was. The hardest part about it? The timing! We had one take to make sure that we were completely in sync with each other. If a single beat, part or note was missed, that mistake would obviously loop for the whole video and it would have been a mess.

How much planning did it take?

We took a bit of time to plan the song arrangement and work out some of the choreography but we only had one shot to make it work as a live take.

How did you plan it?

We tried to arrange the song in an interesting way. Introducing instruments and vocal hooks First that are not prominent and don’t make much sense until the end. For example introducing the drums towards the end gives the ending some explosiveness!

What has the feedback been like?

The reaction has been crazy. We knew we had created something that had never been done before and we had hoped it would get a good reaction but not to the extent of interest the video has generated. We have had hundreds of messages from around the world which has mind-blowing.

On Aug. 23, 2017, journalists at a press event were being shown how the dogs and drones work together during a rescue exercise on a grassy plain outside Zurich, when, incredibly, an actual landslide occurred in the Swiss Alps near the Italian border.

The tragic event — which forced an estimated four million cubic meters of mud and rock plummeting down the side of the Piz Cengalo mountain in southeastern Switzerland, the BBC reported — illustrates how vital it is to have resources like trained dogs and drone technology at the organizations’ disposal.

Both organizations aim to eventually have drones complement the dogs’ work on every rescue event.

“This allows us to have an eye in the air and a nose on the ground,” REDOG president Romaine Kuonen told AFP.

In the wake of natural disasters, drones are particularly helpful at scanning areas unsafe for people (and dogs) to venture, such as the dangerous terrain surrounding cliffs. At the same time, dogs are especially handy at sniffing out those who need rescuing in heavily wooded areas, where operating drones can be difficult.

Allowing dogs and drones to, in a sense, divide and conquer larger areas in the precious hours following a natural disaster — where rescue teams are racing against the clock to save lives, as they did in the wake of the Swiss avalanche — is truly changing the game.

Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images.

“The main benefit is to gain more time, to be more efficient and to be faster to find the missing person,” Dominique Peter of the Swiss Federation of Civil Drones explained to AFP.

Stay up to speed on the news unfolding in Bondo, and learn more about Swiss efforts to combine dogs and drones to save lives in a video by AFP below:

After Hurricane Harvey, a group of good Samaritans came to the rescue of dozens of good dogs.

Houston resident Betty Walter found herself stranded in floodwaters in the wake of the storm. She was also sheltering 21 dogs (some of which belonged to her neighbors) and wasn’t sure how they would all get to safety.

“I was worried there was too many dogs on the boat and it would tipped [sic] over,” Walter wrote in a Facebook post. “I told them I would stay behind and for them to make 2 trips. They said NO we are taking all and you. We had 21 dogs on this boat.”

To get out, the humans had to slog through water higher than her head, she added.

Eventually, Walter and all 21 took shelter at a crew member’s house in nearby Kemah, Texas. At the time of writing, they were all doing fine.

What the heck is going on here?

Sometimes people like to call the (pretty darn adorable) Australian Cattle Dog a blue heeler. But some stray dogs from the city of Navi Mumbai, India, just turned really blue. We’re talking bright, cotton-candy Smurf blue.

What could have turned the dogs such an an unnatural color. The short answer? Pollution.

These dogs are from the city’s Taloja industrial area, which is home to nearly 1,000 different pharmaceutical and industrial factories. According to the Navi Mumbai Animal Protection Cell, one of the companies has been illicitly dumping blue dye into the local Kasadi river. When the dogs went in the water to look for food, they inadvertently gave themselves one of the trendiest new looks of 2017.

“It was shocking to see how the dog’s white fur had turned completely blue,” Arati Chauhan, who runs the animal protection group, told the Hindustan Times.

The group says they’ve seen about five dogs who’ve been affected and reported the problem to a pollution control board. The board says they’ve identified the source and have told the company to fix it.

So far, there’s no word on whether the dye is dangerous, nor whether other animals have been affected, although the animal protection group is worried about wider effects.

The images are dramatic, but unfortunately, it’s rarely this easy to spot pollution.

Though the dyes were dramatic, many types of pollution are much harder to spot. The Kasadi river, for instance, already had as much as 13 times the safe amount of industrial pollutants in it.

Watch Business Insider’s video explainer below:

It’s silly season in the UK, which means the media is abundant with funny and frivolous stories to make up for the summer’s slow news and one reporter in particular is just completely over it.

BBC News presenter Simon McCoy is so over it in fact that not even a story about the World Dog Surfing Championship can get a smile out of him. He even prefaces the segment with, “Just bear in mind, it is August,” setting up the clip with as much silly season enthusiasm as he can muster.

Fighting for the all the good doggos around the world, the account will occasionally shut down anyone who tries to say that bad dogs exist. If you’re new to the world of dog memes, it’s a grand old time.

On Wednesday, popular Twitter person and self-described “normal dude” Brandon Zaboklicki a.k.a sexualjumanji, made the mistake of making the false claim that there are some bad dogs in the world.

We Rate Dogs saw, and asked the man to rethink his stance on bad dogs. He did.

The original tweet has since been deleted, but the regret process is still very much intact. Given that We Rate Dogs has 2.69 million dog-loving followers, it’s safe to say he endured the full wrath of dog Twitter.

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